Review: 'Community' - 'Course Listing Unavailable': I predict a riot

A review of tonight's "Community" coming up just as soon as I'm Ted Danson at Whoopi Goldberg's roast...

When "The Simpsons" does high-concept episodes in which familiar characters die, they take place outside the show's regular continuity, and it's easy for Groundskeeper Willie to return to the land of the living in the next regular episode. "Community," though, has treated all of its episodes as if they take place in the same universe — even if the laws of that universe tend to vary wildly from week to week. So Star-Burns' death in the "Law & Order" parody isn't something to be quickly undone, or even ignored, but a jumping-off point for both an episode about grief and a new story arc in which Chang gets the study group kicked out of Greendale.

Though "Community" has dealt with death before, "Course Listing Unavailable" felt like it was trying to do more things at once than most of the previous episodes in this vein, and it was only successful at some of them.

The first section of the episode did a good job of balancing the darkness of Star-Burns' death with some good character specific jokes, like Troy's fixation on how one-armed the one-armed man was, or Troy being afraid for his Chinese pen pal, or Jeff acknowledging that Britta seemed smarter than him way back at the start of the series.

Things got wobbly after that. With Michael Kenneth Williams' availability for the season used up with last week's episode, we discover that Professor Kane has resigned because of Star-Burns' death. But rather than bring in a new teacher to finish out the semester — which happened in both of the previous two seasons, including the firing of Professor Chang at a very late stage in season 1 — the class is canceled and everyone gets an incomplete, a weird contrivance to make Jeff and the others so bitter about Greendale that they incite a riot at Star-Burns' wake. The wake itself had some good moments (Garrett's horrible falsetto "Ave Maria" chief among them, but also Annie's mic drop, among others), but if the show is going to reuse a plot device, it has to use it going with the same rules as the previous times.

And the riot in turn was an excuse to bring back Chang's Army, which I've never been all that fond of. The show has struggled off and on with how to use Ken Jeong, but with the exception of the film noir parody back in the fall, Security Guard Chang has been his least entertaining incarnation. Even allowing for the elastic reality of this series, Chang as the fascist leader of an army of violent children — and kidnapping Dean Pelton to replace him with a lookalike — doesn't seem to fit.

Yet if I didn't like the mechanisms used to get the study group expelled from school, the aftermath scene at Troy, Abed and Annie's apartment was fantastic: almost like a bonus scene from "Remedial Chaos Theory" (complete with many callbacks, including Britta's attraction to the pizza delivery guy and that guy in turn again asking, "Wait, there are other timelines?"), sad at first but then turning happy when Troy(*) and then Abed convince the others that their friendship ultimately matters more than their enrollment at that ridiculous college.

(*) Troy's been doing a pretty good job of being the leader when necessary, it seems, and often better than Jeff. (Note that the darkest timeline happened when Troy left the room, while the group was at its happiest when Jeff had to get the pizza.) I wonder if this is turning into a "Lost" situation where the guy every viewer assumed was the perfect leader at the start slowly turned out to be anything but, and we got to argue over whether Locke or Sayid (my pick) or Sawyer or Hurley would have done a better job.

Didn't love this one overall, but the last scene was excellent, and in turn sets things up nicely for a very strong episode next week.

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

I actually liked this quite a bit more than you did. Yes, the incomplete was a contrivance but since I had to go with it in the first season, it was easier to roll with it in this season.

One strength of the episode was how the study group stuck together against Chang's attack. When I saw the commercials, I initially thought it'd be very Chang heavy but I think the show did a nice job at using him just enough.

Or maybe I liked it because of all the things that made me laugh. "Come on Eileen" will be in my head all day. I also think "We're all Ted Danson at Whoopi Goldberg's roast" may be one of my favorite lines of the season.

I recall in season 2 Sayid thought it was a good idea to take a boat around the other side of the island with a pregnant lady in tow and somehow this would get the much-needed drop on them. I'm not sure I trust Sayid's plans.

I guess to defend the cancellation of the biology class, it's been built up pretty strongly that Greendale is in an even crappier state than it has been before, especially with the Air Conditioner Repair College stepping in to call more shots, so it's not completely ridiculous that the college might write off the class rather than hire a new professor. I'm probably grasping at straws, but I don't think it necessarily breaks away from the first two instances of classes losing teachers.

"it's not completely ridiculous that the college might write off the class rather than hire a new professor."

I'd argue that it IS ridiculous, but also completely believable because Greendale is ridiculous. Given Community's remarkable self awareness I see something like this as more of a subtle commentary on sitcom plot contrivances.

One danger for the show is similar to the office where things start to stray a little too far from reality. Though i actually really like the idea of the greendale 7 and having them get kicked out of school, having it come as the result of chang and his army of boys. That being said i actually thought there were a lot of funny moments tonight.

"look little riot gear! Awwww! ", the callback to "wait there are other timelines?"

See, I LOVED this episode because I am from Davis, Land Of Pepper Spray. The Subway backing out, "Greendale Seven", story is straight from our local headlines because last quarter protesters shut down the campus bank by blocking the entryway for 2 months, causing US Bank to stomp out in a huff and renege on their contract. UCD, in retaliation, turned in the names of 12 protesters to the law and they're possibly facing 11 years in prison.

The whole thing has been pretty ridiculous on both sides. The university was clearly too terrified of the publicity to actually send cops to chase people out, and that pissed off the bank. Though as far as I ever saw, nobody was being particularly violent about it--just camping out with their homework in front of the door. But I gather "negotiations" in which trying to talk the protesters into leaving didn't work this time. And now suddenly nobody's afraid of police any more.

I know that Community is NOW scheduled to run 3 episodes on May 17, but I imagine that when this episode was produced, they expected the show to run a little bit into the summer.

I agree it's shaky logic that Kane wasn't replaced when Duncan and Chang were, but I can understand it as the show commenting on having to come back in the summer.

And let's not completely dismiss the fact that all the study group was quite angry about the class being N/A'd, calling the Dean incompetent. Not replacing the prof certainly falls under that distinction.

Thanks for the heads up about the remaining Community airings, Mike. Since it looks like both P&R and The Office are airing their season finales next week, I was wondering what NBC was planning to do on the 17th.

Sometimes you just have to let an episode load the bases for next week's big hitter, and that's what this felt like. Alan's obviously already seen the next one and alluded to it being a goodie, but even before I saw his comment I was content that this was a groundwork episode which would likely have a major payoff. Looking forward to it!

BTW, did anyone other Trekkies catch the "General Chang" reference? I don't recall the show drawing inspiration from or even mentioning Star Trek before, so I wonder if that was just a coincidence or an intentional quick-hit tribute to Christopher Plummer's character in Star Trek VI.

The episode was the 5 stages of grief. That's why it was jumping around a lot. At the beginning they were in denial. Burning down the school was rage/anger. Trying to pin the blame on Chang at the board enquiry was bargaining. Finally at the end they were all depressed that they were expelled and thought their lives were over.

i think most people saw that, no? But it didn't matter, the structure was there, but it still felt scattered because there wasn't any point to it until the end; and it was just a delivery system to buy time to arrive at the actual meat of the story, the gang getting ousted.

This episode really felt like a series finale to me with how it ended, so I'm surprised that there are more episodes remaining. I felt like they could have easily ended on this note (assuming the show is cancelled because NBC sucks). That said, I'm glad there is more community yet to come.

I also agree, this show has never used Chang properly. I feel like they brought in Ken Jeong to be one of the big names to bring in viewers and they were never able to fully define his character. I've hated every iteration of Chang and feel that this show is weaker with him being a part of it. The best episodes don't involve Chang at all.

I loved Spanish professor Chang and the sort of power he had over the study group. Remember when he forced Pierce and Troy to attend the V-day dance as his bitches? Student Chang was boring but still amusing enough. Security office Chang is just intolerable. I know Community isn't confined to reality, but what were all those Changlorious bastards doing out of school. Jeff should have been able to get Chang arrested again for luring young kids to him.

"but if the show is going to reuse a plot device, it has to use it going with the same rules as the previous times." That's the best thing about Community, that it doesn't play by 60-year-old sitcom rules. I'd rather see the writers try something new and fail than serve up another paintball episode, or revisit the timeline argument to shoehorn in a quasi-happy ending.

Overall, this episode was a letdown from last week, but it'll be interesting to see the characters in their new aimless states. Good on Harmon and company for shaking up the snowglobe, and maybe even cracking a turret off the fake plastic castle.

I actually loved this episode, and here's why:-Pierce had actual lines and interacted with the study group!-"how one-armed was he? tell me when to stop..."-the subtle structuring of the episode around the 5 stages of grief-just the right amount of chang (i.e. not too much)-the dean's replacement-ave maria-everything else

Also, Season 3 Chang is garbage. I've been re-watching Season 1, and he was so kick-ass back then (for instance, when he drags Annie, along with her desk, out of the room when she didn't obey "pencils down.")

I thought this was one of the best episodes of the season, especially with the ending. Nice surprise with them getting expelled. Also, I think the Pai Mei reference (Troy calling his pen pal) was a shout out to KILL BILL.

Is there a chance the one-armed lawyer is Evil Jeff, and this whole season is setting up for a RCT redux season finale where the various timelines collide? They felt like they spent a bit too long on that joke, and according to Abed they DID lose the same arm. Or is that just an Easter egg?

I though the best part of the whole episode, laugh-out-loud beats aside, was seeing Dean Pelton appearing fairly competent behind clothes doors, only to slip on the personality - and clothing - we're accustomed to as a sorely misguided means of ingratiating himself with the "Greendale 7."

I thought Donald Glover was fantastic in this episode. Definitely a standout. I loved when he asked about Starburns (sorry, Alex) ashes .. "if we rub that will he come out and do celebrity impressions?"

it felt really scattered. The moment where the gang gets ousted by chang, I thought, oooh, that is interesting, finally the point and the story for the episode comes, only to realize it was almost the end of the ep. Which left me thinking, huh, what took up all the time, I didn't feel I got my fill of a community episode even after watching most of it. So that kind of sucked.

But I love love love the callback to chaos theory. And I'm psyched for next week's episode.

This week however? Meh, i guess. I didn't hate it, there were funny jokes in there, and I love the starburns tribute vids, but it wasn't there.

I have to agree, not sure what they can do with Chang's character. It's problematic.

agreed. the run since pillows and blankets has been a great one overall. I think they deserve a lot of credit for sticking with star burns as dead and not taking the lazy way out of an "out there" storyline with real stakes. its everyones right to criticize and tastes are not equal, but this is the best overall network comedy I've ever witnessed. it's like SNL meets seinfeld meets the breakfast club. brilliant!